The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-02-09
A. Southern Plantation Recon
structed.

A. Southern Plantation Recon
structed.
The celebrated Menelas plantation, near
129 miles from New Orleans, |
on the Illinois Central Railroad, is being |
and turned into dairy and
stock ranch. by Mr.. s. K. Williams, an
experienced stock man from near Elgin,
Ill. The place contains 1900 acres, and Is
fully watered by everything streams, fed by
never-failing springs. Nine hundred acres
of the place have been opened up and for
years planted in cotton, but now Is heavily
set in grass, which virtually prevents the
profitable planting of cotton or corn.
Most Of this tract is rich bottom land. The
balance of the place is still covered with
timber, aud Is also set to grass, which al
lords fine pasturing tor stock OF all kinds
The past season about seventy-6ve tons OF
nice hay were cut on the place, and grass
enough gone to waste, unfed and uncut, to
make four hundred tons of hay, worth on
the plantation, $40 per ton. Crab, Ber-
muda, paspalum and japan clover consti-
tute the principal grasses, all Of which
grow without seeding or planting, and are
as valuable for making beef or milk, or
for growing young cattle, as Timothy or
clover in the North. To propagate these
grasses, all there is to do, is to level down
the cotton and corn ridges and let it alone
no seeding or p.anting-aud these grasses
grow in almost endless quantities, and on
the rich bottom land make from four
thousand to eight thousand pounds fine
hay per acre, as two crops can be cut year
ly, and fair remunerative crop can be
made on old, wornout ridge land.
Mr.. Menelas is a Greek merchant, the
highest type OF an honorable man, and has
placed Mr.. Williams in full control of the
plantation, cattle, tools, and everything
needful to the full development of the
place, while Mr.. Williams, in turn, feels
sensibly the weighty responsibility he is
under, as the eyes of large number OF
persons not only at home, but in different
States, are watching his results. The bus
mess of the place has already been recon
structcd, and different depai tments assigned
to competent persons. Mr.. Williams, in a
general way, has an eye over all and ar
ranges all, but in an especial manner looks
after the cattle and work animals, and
sees that they are properly cared for also
sees after the blowing, seeding, planting,
cultivating, harvesting, and, in fact, all the
general work, while Mr.. Harding and his
estimable lady-also neutrality-suspicious.
of untiring energy and limitless ambition
have charge of the dairy department
He looks after the COWS in milk, and all
young calves sees that they are properly
fed and kept warm in winter, and that the
milk is correctly handled in the milk
room, and cream converted into strictly
gilt-edge butter, for which there is an
| urgent and unprecedented demand where
once introduced. When Mr.. Williams
first took charge of the plantation, he did
not expect to make butter, but sell milk,
as.he had always heard that the native
cow of Mississippi is not butter COW; but
after carefully and thoroughly testing her
| butter qualities, he has decided that her
equal is rarely to be found, even among the
high-priced breeds. During the entire month
of November last, the daily monthly aver
| age was one pound frst-class butter from
one and one-half gallons of milk, and
on one occasion, three and one-eigth
pound were made from four gallons milk
| milk set in one vessel from same milking
yielded thirty per cent. cream.
The dairy products will all be handled
! from one stand or dairy depot in Brook
haven. This stand is provided with a
large refrigerator for holding butter only,
| and a small creamer, for holding cans OF
cream, whole-milk and butter-milk, which
can be drawn out as desired, without open
| ing the cans or creamer. Private families
and merchants can supply themselves from
the butter depot, as they need, with ice
cold milk and butter as firm and slightly
| in summer as in winter months. This
depot and selling department is under the
contract and management of a pleasing,
attractive, business lady.
The poultry department is controlled by
an experienced and efficient person, famil-
| lar with all its details and needs. The
chickens are handled in colonies of twelve
hens and one rooster to colony. Each
L Al
is separate and distinct from all other
colonies, and while the ten or fifteen
colonies mingle freely with each other
during the day, at night, each colony re-
tires to its own home for the night. The
young chicks. as they are Matched, are
taken from their mothers and cared for by
| a hen who mothers from seventy-fve to
one hundred, while the mother soon be-
gins laying again. By this method, most
of the hens are kept laying and sitting
much of the year.
dairyman, who feeds all surplus milk and
slops to the hogs. No department pays
better, according to time and money in
vested, than this.
In the coming spring horse depart
ment will be added, which will be under
the direction of Mr.. Harding.
Similar farms to the Menelas plantati on.
but smaller in size, are now to be found
for sale all through the cotton belt, just be-
cause they are grown up to grass and the
owners do not know how to utilize the
grass, which, if skillfally handled, is of
far more value than crop of cotton. No
lands in any State north are capable of
sustaining more cattle to the acre than the
land around Brookhaven and in other por-
tions Of Mississippi.